American Gadfly

Commentary, Critique, and Insight on Contemporary America

Saturday, August 25, 2007

You're not alone, Mother Teresa!

The faithful masses were spinning this week at revelations that Mother Teresa, or rather soon to be Saint Teresa, expressed doubt about her Christian faith and towards God.
What's so shocking about this, the Gadfly asks? I would counter that anyone with a modicum of common sense would have doubts about the make believe that is Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and the multitude of faiths in existence today.
There are so many contradictions in faith, and conflicts that arise if one believes in the existence of a just, omnipotent God, and falsehoods in every "holy" text in existence, that it is truly astounding that anyone in this age of science believes in God.
Doubt towards faith is best highlighted, to me, in the book "Of Human Bondage", where the protagonist Philip Carey, realizes that all this belief in a just God and prayer is bunk. No God will fix his club foot, no amount of goodness or prayer will fix his club foot. Only the secular health care system and medical intervention from the hands of man can fix his club foot.
Those of us who have moved beyond doubt in God should celebrate that Mother Teresa looked towards what we embrace. That there really is no God. All the motions we go through, all the holy texts, all the priests, popes, and holy men (and they are, usually, only men, not women allowed into the hallow circles of holiness), are just part of a huge game of make believe.
Notwithstanding the goodness that Mother Teresa brought to this Earth, one would wonder, how much more suffering she could have ended if she promoted birth control and contraception to the poor women of Calcutta? Forget even about abortion, but just allowing women control of their reproduction in the form of birth control could have decreased the numbers of suffering children that Teresa had to take care of. It is ironic that while providing comfort and care to the downtrodden of Calcutta, Mother Teresa actively renounced the scientific/medical means for limiting poverty through contraception and education. Yet, that is what happens in the make believe world of faith - when we believe from the pope that birth control is a sin, we have to preach against it, even when we see the suffering that a lack of birth control can produce.
It's too bad Mother Teresa couldn't have taken the further steps to embrace a secular stance and continue to support the poor and downtrodden as well as the efforts to uplift the poor through family planning and education.

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